5/6C’s Class Blog 2008

We’ve finally finished a couple more book reviews and posted them. Click on our Books page to see what we’ve been reading and what we thought. We will add more detail to some of our reviews soon.

Currently we are reading Morris Gleitzman’s “Then”, the sequel to “Once”, which we read last term. There is some good news for those who love the books and can’t wait to read the next bit: we read on the internet that there will be a third book in a couple of years, called “Now”. I wonder if there will be a happy ending?

Post your thoughts in a comment.

We have two new students in our grade – welcome to Charlie and Ricky; it’s great to have you on board, boys.

Keep an eye out on our Student Blogs page for Charlie’s and Ricky’s new blogs – they just need to choose their theme, add a couple of widgets and then start posting. Stay tuned for their updates.

Image made with Tag Galaxy and Jing.

We’ve lost another student. Zack has moved to another school, and we will miss him. Our class discussions will be a lot quieter now, without Zack’s insights and comments.

Zack, we hope you have a great time at your new school. Don’t forget you can send us comments on our blog, or email us, so we can keep in touch.

Picture Credit: Suitcase II, Carl Street, Originally uploaded by heather

This site, ClassTools, is a great way to make Flash games, activities and diagrams which can then be easily put on your blog. Best of all, you don’t have to sign up for anything – just get on there and play! Here’s a Venn diagram I put together in just a couple of minutes; it’s much quicker than the involved diagrams we did earlier this year, although they did look better.

Click here for full screen version

Cute animation, isn’t it? But it does keep changing very quickly, so here are the questions for you to consider typed out so they don’t keep disappearing on you!

• DId you enjoy your holiday?
• What do you most want to learn about this term?
• What new skills would you like to acquire?
• Which skills would you like to develop further?

Post your answers in a comment here.

Animation made with Fodey

There really is such a thing as a four leafed clover – here’s the evidence (this came up for discussion in class recently). There are lots of lucky charms and traditions for wishes – we read about some of them in Felice Arena’s book, Wish.

Some people think it’s lucky to carry a rabbit’s foot. I don’t think that’s very lucky for the rabbit, though!

What do you think is lucky?

Picture from SuperFantastic

Look what I “found” in a newspaper. An amazing story. 

Image made with Fodey

Here’s a great program to make easy comic strips with; it’s called ToonDoo. Grade 5/6C, you can use this program to make comics after you have drafted a storyboard of your planned comic. First though, it’s always a good idea to have a play. So follow this link to ToonDoo, then click on the blue Tools tab. Go to the top choice, ToonDoo Maker. It will ask you to log in – use the username and password that is in our Collaborate forum.

1. Use our class username and password, and start ‘tooning! (Remember the rules – polite, clean and friendly).
2. When you are done, save it and view it.
3. When viewing, you’ll see a group of icons on the right hand side of your cartoon. Click on the bottom one, “Embed in your blog”. Copy the bottom set of code.
4. Make a new post in your blog. Give it a heading and do any typing you want about your cartoon. Then go to the HTML tab on the top right of the editing section. Click below any typing you have done and then paste (right click to paste, or CTRL+V) the code in. Save your post and voila! You’re a published cartoonist!
5. If your cartoon is too big to fit in your blog, you can also save the cartoon as a picture. Save it to your own work folder, then you can upload it to your blog as you would any other picture. This option lets you resize the cartoon to fit your blog.
6. Post a note in the collaboration forum to let us know you have a cartoon done.

The most popular books being read at our school so far are The Potato People, by Pamela Allen for the juniors and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl, for the middle school. In the senior school there is a very wide range of books being read, but the one read by the most students (three!) is Specky Magee by Felice Arena and Garry Lyon.

What’s your favorite book? Why is it your favorite?

Photo credit: Cat Reads, Originally uploaded by Litandmore